The recent surge in young heart attack victims.
- Nikita Aggarwal
- Sep 28, 2021
- 3 min read
Not long ago, heart attacks were primarily a problem faced by older adults. It was rare for anyone younger than 40 to have a heart attack. Now 1 in 5 heart attack patients is younger than 40 years of age.
Here’s another troubling fact to highlight the problem: Having a heart attack in your 20s or early 30s is more common. Between the years 2000-2016, the heart attack rate increased by 2% every year in this young age group.

New research, presented at the 2019 conference of the American College of Cardiology, spotlights an alarming trend: a rising incidence of heart attacks in younger adults. The study was the first to compare “young” heart attack survivors (41 to 50 years old) to “very young” survivors (age 40 or younger). The proportion of under-40 adults having a heart attack rose by 2 percent a year for the last 10 years.
There can be innumerable causes and concerns that can affect a person’s cardiovascular system but some are more prevalent and riskier than their counterparts.
If you have diabetes, you’re 2-4 times more likely to die from heart disease compared with adults who don’t have diabetes. The problem develops when your blood sugar isn’t controlled well enough to keep it within a healthy range. High blood sugar damages your blood vessels, which increases the chance of fats building up in your arteries and causing atherosclerosis.
Patients with diabetes are also more likely to have other chronic health diseases that significantly increase the risk of a heart attack, including high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is one of the biggest risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Unfortunately, just like the trend in heart attacks, the incidence of hypertension is rising faster in young adults than in older adults. High blood pressure makes your heart muscles thicken, harms your blood vessels, and increases your risk of a heart attack.
Substance abuse also takes a toll on your heart, though the experts are still studying the effect of marijuana on your heart, they know that it boosts your heart rate and raises your risk of having a heart attack. Cocaine’s impact on your heart, however, is well established. Cocaine increases your heart rate, tightens your blood vessels, and raises your blood pressure, all of which are associated with heart attacks.
Of all the things that contribute to heart attacks in young adults, smoking cigarettes is one of the top risk factors. Your risk of a heart attack increases in direct proportion to the number of cigarettes you smoke. Smoking one pack a day more than doubles your risk for a heart attack compared with nonsmokers.
While cigarette smoking has a much higher chance of causing a heart attack compared with vaping, you’re still not off the hook if you vape. E-cigarettes contain nicotine and other toxic compounds that accelerate your heart rate and raise your blood pressure. A recent study found that vaping made you 34% more likely to have a heart attack compared with non-vapers.
Moreover, the research found evidence that high-intensity exercise can acutely increase the risk for sudden cardiac arrest or sudden cardiac death in individuals with underlying cardiac disease. This can also increase the risk of heart rhythm disorders, especially for
the minority who have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or coronary heart disease.
That doesn’t mean you should put away the walking shoes, though as extremely long-term endurance exercise puts equally extreme demands on the cardiovascular system.
People don’t usually have heart disease in their thirties, but they should be aware. If you start managing your health in your thirties and watching your blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels, hopefully, you won’t have problems when you’re older.
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